Friday, September 11, 2015

BSNYC Friday Fun Quiz!

So what do you do when you represent the second-most dangerous precinct in New York City for cyclists? Push for a crackdown on reckless drivers? Please. Let's all say it together: you tell the kiddies to wear helme(n)ts!

(Via Twitter)

In response to a recent report which labeled the 66th Police Precinct in Borough Park as the second most dangerous precinct in the city for bike riders, state Sen. Simcha Felder has launched a “Wear a Helmet” campaign with a health care organization called BINA Stroke and Brain Injury Assistance.Felder (D-Borough Park-Midwood) is taking his safety message to children, visiting day camps to talk about the importance of wearing helmets while bike riding.
Oh yeah? Why not take that safety message to the parents who are speeding all over Brooklyn in their minivans? How about telling them to pay attention and slow the fuck down? Well, because those drivers are the ones who vote for you and they don't want to slow down, so instead we've all agreed to buy into this whole safety pantomime and the Putting On of the Foam Hat:

During one visit to a day camp, Felder listened as one little boy told the class about how a helmet had saved his life. The child had gotten into a bike accident and even though the helmet he was wearing was cracked and he received stitches on his chin, his head was protected and he was saved from serious injury.

Felder is also using ice cream to get his message across to children during the “Wear a Helmet” campaign.From Sunday, Aug. 30, to Friday, Sept. 4, any child or teenager wearing a helmet while riding a bike may pick up a coupon for a free Klein’s ice cream from the following participating neighborhood toy stores: Toys 4 You at 4510 13th Ave.; Linicks at 4811 13th Ave.; Double Play at 4115 14th Ave.; Tree House at 5210 16th Ave; Toys 2 Discover at 5504 18th Ave.; and Totally Toys at 1435 Coney Island Ave.
Ironically all that ice cream is a far greater risk to their health than bicycling without a helme(n)t.The coupons can be redeemed at an event called the Safety Sunday Extravaganza, which will take place on Sunday, Sept. 6 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Borough Park Ice Cream House, at 2 Church Ave.

Had I known about this, I would have set up a competing event right across the street called "No Helme(n)t No Problem(n)!" wherein I gave every kid who showed up without one a helme(n)t full of ice cream.

And let's not forget the propaganda:

For a free copy of the coloring book, call Felder’s office at 718-253-2015.

Yes, there's nothing like the meditative act of coloring to really massage those spurious messages into a child's brain, and here's a page from "Shmuli Abromowitz, the Rebbe Who Cycled Without a Helmet:"

Speed cameras have overwhelming support among city officials. A proposed demonstration program was included in the State Assembly budget proposal, but was blocked by Marty Golden and Simcha Felder in the Senate.

I’ve had it up to here with the pedal bikers. They are probably the most obnoxious, arrogant, self-serving pests on the road today.They flock to rural roads riding slowly in both lanes. They put out signs (usually screened by weeds so you have to get out of your car or tractor to read them) alerting legitimate vehicles that the ISIS of the rural roads is on the prowl looking to hold them hostage at slow speeds.

What the fuck is he talking about?

Pedal bikers have no regard for vehicles that pay insurance, gas taxes, license plate and inspections by pedaling their spindly, fragile, unsafe-at-any-speed conveyance down bucolic country roads daring legitimate vehicles to challenge them in a game of pedal bike chicken.The stupidity of this insane situation is that eventually some pedal biker will challenge an automobile with a less-than-sharing driver. The result is a funeral. How sad. When will they learn? When will they ever learn?

All of this is 100% true, and certainly the best thing about being a cyclist is that I'm fully exempt from federal, state, and local taxes.

Yep, that's right, cyclists don't pay taxes. If you ride a bike and you've been paying them in error, simply go here to claim your refund.

As part of that rather narrowly focused design goal, Specialized is launching the new Allez Sprint in just two complete builds and one frameset to start – none of which have provision for a front derailleur. By Specialized's reasoning, bikes specifically used for criterium racing or fast lunch rides simply don't need that wide a gearing range, and the bare seat tube that results looks sleeker and cleaner.

Sorry, that's a dedicated fast lunch ride bike. You'll still need separate bikes for medium and slow lunch rides, not to mention rides at other meal times such as breakfast and brunch.

147 comments:

57. The difference, we argue, is that modern man has the sense (largely justified) that change is IMPOSED on him, whereas the 19th century frontiersman had the sense (also largely justified) that he created change himself, by his own choice. Thus a pioneer settled on a piece of land of his own choosing and made it into a farm through his own effort. In those days an entire county might have only a couple of hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated and autonomous entity than a modern county is. Hence the pioneer farmer participated as a member of a relatively small group in the creation of a new, ordered community. One may well question whether the creation of this community was an improvement, but at any rate it satisfied the pioneer’s need for the power process.

As for the rural roads, the "both lanes" seems like an overstatement, but during a phase of life when I was stuck with a car commute up to Rockleigh, NJ and briefly across the line into Rockland, the number one most nerve-racking part was the (illegal-by-frequent-signage) two-abreast training rides. Those winding roads often don't have sight distance to safely (or legally) pass something occupying most of the travel lane, yet 25 mph or so is far enough below the nominal traffic speed that one can't simply stay behind them without collecting ones own tail of other increasingly aggravated drivers. When cyclist behavior makes it difficult for even pro-cycling drivers who would like to overtake them in a safe manner to do so, there's a real problem.

Of course it is by no means only the cyclists - that same stretch of road had a school zone it was effectively impossible to honor without creating a huge safety hazard, as even dropping speed a little in honor of it would typically cause following cars to illegally pass in a way that surely meant they were paying no attention to the possible presence of children.

What do both situations have in common? Posting rules we don't have the social will to enforce, and which may or may not be practical if obeyed. Perhaps the literal compliance of self-driving cars will finally force confronting the inherent inconsistencies between laws and socially enforced behavior contradictions, including others such as the challenges left-turning drivers face in both watching out for oncomming traffic that could kill them, vs looking in a completely different direction for crossing pedestrians they could kill.

Finally, single-mode travellers often have terrible perspective on how to make multi-mode traffic work. It's great that so many New Yorkers do not drive cars (and I'm glad not to have in years), yet it does mean that many are as ignorant of vehicular driving challenges as car drivers are of cycling or pedestrian challenges. Once one adopts the "screw you its your own fault for choosing _x_ mode of transit" attitude, nothing good will result. And that's not just an observation about others - I was a better cyclist, pedestrian, and driver during a phase of life when I routinely covered the same stretch of roadway by all three means, and I have to face the fact that since I stopped driving, I've become a less courteous pedestrian (I basically won't cycle in NYC except on protected paths, though I do stop at lights when doing so, no matter the hour)

This new "fast lunch bike. Aluminum is cheaper than carbon. And one chain ring is cheaper because you eliminate a chain ring, derailer, cable and shifer, and (maybe most important) the labor it takes to install and properly adjust all these.

Simple: when your two-abreast training buddy is riding next to you, he's riding in what should be the safety buffer between a single bicyclist and an overtaking car, which means that _he_ gets far less of a safety buffer than any conscientious driver would like to give him.

And he's breaking the law, at least in the section of roadway I was referring to, which is heavily signed as requiring single-file cycling.

Putting in a protected bike line would be best for everyone of course; but short of that, it's only safe when both the drivers and the cyclists do their part to make it safe - for the drivers that means being willing to wait briefly for a good passing opportunity, and for the cyclists it means either literally following the single-file law, or [i]at least[/i] honoring it when there is automobile traffic backed up behind them.

Jesse Sisolack 1 day agoYes, that is a neat one. It is a shame we do not have many neat little kid's guns like that these days. There are a few thankfully.

Oh thankfully, because we need more videos like this. Who doesn't open carry a loaded gun to a wedding?, and surprisingly, this wasn't in 'murica.See, all those Middle East invasions to seed American democracy ARE paying off.

Man, That kiddie gun video is just plain stupid. We played with TOYS, cap guns etc at the age these are being marketed. Yeah, we had to pass a test it was much harder than any government mandate. It was the Dad test. You fucko-ed up, end of your session. Plus lots of well earned public shaming. Offense, mostly not being aware of where the muzzle was pointing. But it could also be not caring for it properly. That was a long time ago.

Oh yeah, and when a bike helmet cracks that means the material "failed" but the helmet absorbed a lot of crash energy before it broke. Without the helmet, the crash energy would have gone into your head. So there's a sense that the helmet didn't "work" -- it didn't compress the way it's supposed to -- but it definitely limited the amount of damage that would have happened to your head.

Anonymous at 12:35.... Don't get me started (broken record) about those assholes wearing the sleepy hollow club jerseys. A lone rider will move from the fog line to the double yellow & force me to be entirely in the left lane. Really annoying as my intent was to give them 4-5 feet and pass before the next blind curve.

I don't know if it's the whole club that does that, or if I keep encountering the same asshole.

You have to be a bike hater to get extra upset at 2 abreast bikers. Even 2 abreast bikers take up less space than a slow moving car. Yes sometimes very temporarily you have to slow down to a slower speed to wait to pass 2 abreast bikers, but they are also much easier to pass than a slow moving car. I've often seen and experienced and even been a slow moving car with a long line a cars waiting to pass (hahahha, now it is my turn to BE IN YOUR WAY!). Never have I seen bicycles with a long line of cars looking for an opportunity to pass (though if I did I would be amused, really it is so rare, much less often the daily obstructions BY OTHER CARS....

Being from Chicago, my bad, I'm like the rest of the flyover world, we don't kvetch 24/7. As for the marketing gibberish told to me when buying the bike(s), I don't recall. I just rarely need a double. It is also directly related to not kvetching 24/7,I don't pay attention to the puffery.

As for speed cameras being a deterrent.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I thought you New Yorkers were not the gullible type. Or maybe, you New Yorkers are more genial than us Chicagoans. But please, show me any evidence of reduced accidents do to speed, red light or any camera type. Never happened in this part of merka.

i used to come home from school and would be alone starting in like...5th grade maybe? young. anyway, i used to get into my parents closet and get the stash of bullets down - just little 22 cal., but still bullets. i would then take a hammer, bang on the lead tip to flatten it and then remove the powder from the shell.

this all to make a much bigger pile of powder that i would then attempt to turn into DIY M80's (or in my head sticks of dynamite because i guess i needed some dynamite at the time).

anyway. pretty much the end of the story. nothing ever happened and turns out you have to be chinese to make fireworks so my attempts never panned out.

but that was my after school program many days in the late 80's. just unsupervised, hoodlum ass stupid shit. good times actually. i guess attempted bomb making kept me off the drugs. so there is that. maybe i should start again...cause the booze is currently winning.

Guys of a certain bent have been making flamethrowers in their basements (or their mom's basements) for decades. In the 80's I made a mini one that used a jumbo sized can of wasp spray. You can search youtube for dozens of home made flamethrower videos.

And except for a few guys who hurt themselves or damaged their own property, how have any of these guys harmed, endangered or threaten you? You did not even know they existed until just now.

Red light cameras make a fuck ton of money, for Redflex. Maybe NYC, with its vast scale, can make their own version suitable to their needs. As for us poor schlubs in scranusland, it's just another way to rip you off. You pay the traffic ticket, the judicial fee, and a fee to Redflex. And it's not cheap. Lots and lots of Redflex hate out there.

The $29 million in fines so far this year will probably lead to a few sensational local TV news segments about how the cameras are lightening driver’s wallets. But the fact is that revenue from the cameras, at $50 per ticket, decreases over time. A year ago, each camera issued an average of 192 violations per day. By last month, that number dropped to 69, DOT said, indicating that drivers are slowing down.

thats the catch 22 with those - they do work, but so well that they stop making enough money to pay for the systems that power them. my home town in GA has a bunch of defunct cameras all over the place.

and snob, i cant believe you didnt respond to the summons with: DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

"Take a piece of Styrofoam and bend it until it cracks. How much energy did it absorb?"

Take a piece of Styrofoam and drop weights on it until you determine how much weight it will take to crack it.

If you had to choose between the following, which would you choose?A. Put the piece of Styrofoam on your head and drop the same weight on it.B. Drop the same weight on your head without the Styrofoam in place.

"Do not sacrifice the safety, the security and the stability of 300 million Americans for the legacy of one man," implored Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) as he stood next to a poster of the Twin Towers burning on Sept. 11, 2001.

And I'd argue that across the spectrum from "acorn" to "Acme safe" there's a relatively narrow section in which the Styrofoam is actually going to make any difference and that my preference would for the most part be largely psychological.

Sure, there are certain ways you can fall off a bike where a helmet will help. There are other ways you can fall off a bike where the helmet won't matter. There are even ways you can fall off a bike where the helmet will cause more harm than good.

So to build a false sense of security and a safety philosophy around this hat may help you if a very specific thing happens seems rather humorous to me--and I even wear the damn things when I'm Fredding.

@BSNYC I'm totally OK with your not wearing a helmet. It's your decision. I agree with you that helmet laws do more harm than good. And I'm totally on-board with you when people try to substitute helmet wearing campaigns for improved infrastructure, or enforcement of the laws (such as they are; we need better laws) against dangerous motorists.But when people start going on about how helmets don't protect heads, I think they're just taking the argument too far.

@BSNYC, fine.BTW, on better laws: what we need is a law that requires motorists to exercise "reasonable care." The problem with existing laws is that they require the state to show intent. So if a motorist says, "I didn't mean to do that. The gas pedal got stuck" and there's no evidence otherwise, they're basically good. No intent, no criminality suspected. We need laws that say if a motorist, through failure to exercise reasonable care, injures a pedestrian or cyclist, then they have to lose their license until they take driver's ed and retake the driver's exam (for example).

The misapprehension that helmets are more effective than they are has led directly to the following examples of fucktardery:

--Media victim-blaming ("the cyclist was not wearing a helmet");--Phony political bullshit instead of real action, a la Simcha's deplorable fearmongering'--Helmet laws--Cyclists who think wearing a helmet gives them "safety points" they can then squander on doing stuff that's actually dangerous like riding bikes with no brakes.--Parents in playgrounds who freak out if their toddler straddles a wheeled toy without a helmet (I see this all the time), and then slap a big foam bowl on the kid's head with about 3" of slack in the straps--which is ACTUALLY dangerous as the helmet's loose enough to slide off the kid's noggin and choke him/her.

Helmets are relatively (not completely) ineffective in the overall context of what it means to ride a bike (not to mention culturally toxic) so reminding people of this is not taking the argument too far, it is both true and extremely important.

Never have I seen bicycles with a long line of cars looking for an opportunity to pass

Try driving in and around Rockleigh, NJ. It used to be an every-other-day occurrence. And we're not talking about waiting "a bit" for a no-stress passing opportunity, but rather miles of winding roads that only rarely offer sufficient sight lines for one.

The "two abreast is safer" crowd misses that one can pass a single cyclist with ample safety margin by putting your left wheels on or just over the line, which leaves space for any unexpected opposing traffic, but on the same road passing a pair requires either going well into the opposite lane and not leaving room for opposing traffic (illegally crossing the double yellow, which is there precisely because the short sight lines make it unsafe), or else cutting it uncomfortably (yes, uncomfortable for the conscientious, pro-biking driver) close to the cyclists.

...that's probably why there are signs making riding two abreast illegal...

@BSNYC I recently rode in France in PBP (which, you'll be happy to hear, is helmet-optional) and French drivers are AWESOME. I mean, really amazing. Ex. I come to a crosswalk on my bike, not even in the crosswalk, but still on the sidewalk. I stop, and a motorist WITH THE RIGHT OF WAY stops. If we could get motorists here to exercise 1/10 of that kind of caution it would save more lives (and make life more pleasant) than helmets ever will.But I still think they protect heads, pretty well.

That reminds me of riding in Palisades Park (Under the GWB) not long after road was first opened to cyclists. Some Jersey driver fuckoh wouldn't cross the (imaginary) center line and I was hit in the ass with the side view mirror. I was as far to the right as I could be on a road with no shoulder, going 7 mph up a hill. Two wheels over the (imaginary) center line & he would have passed me cleanly. Fuckoh.

I looked at the picture if that Special Ed bike and it made me irrationally angry and I had an urge to smash the fucking thing with a baseball bat. I don't know what it was - it might have been the nose down seat, but the whole thing is an aesthetic clusterfuck. Basically, cat6 freds are already obnoxious enough. That cat6 fred sled is like the Hummer of bikes - it's going to make an obnoxious bunch of assholes feel like they can be even more obnoxious. Fuck you, Special Ed. And Fuck you, Mike Sinyard.

on the serious flipside,one bad apple does not equate to those that are good.that being said,to all the police,fire,emts,first responders,flight crews and civilians who perished fourteen years ago today,rest in peace.

Oh yes. 14 years ago today, I took my turn in our ER, distant from the WTC, to wait for the wounded. At first I was sick to my stomach waiting for the patents to come. Two hours later, I was more sick, with the realization that no survivors would be coming because this was no ordinary fire.

I heard that metro north was running & I could go home to Westchester. One of the psychiatrists joined me to walk to GCT through strangely empty Manhattan streets without saying a word.

Tomorow morning is the Whistler Gran Fondo. It is also the Masters championship, and so almost everyone I know is going to be on the Sea to Sky. I am going to take the time to do a Fondon't reconnaissance ride, and if you have the morning to yourself to do as you please, please do join me. Come to Musette cafe by quarter of nine in the morning. I am babbling about it elsewhere...

dop, I was working in yonkers that day....was able to see the towers on fire from jfk marina....anyway,later that day,my friend who was my co-worker and I headed to st john's to donate.the line was out the door. went down to lower manhattan two weeks after the attacks after seeing the first yankee game played since then,and made it there in 20 minutes.i know,can't do that today.parked in Chinatown(another rarity) and then to the site.stood with others staring at the rubble.not a pin dropped.very weird.thanks for being there.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

"posting rules we don't have the social will to enforce" or most people are too stupid to follow, which is why we have LAWS because people are too fucking stoopid to own common sense let alone practice it. Is it really your job to worry about some asshole passing you over a double yellow at 95mph in a school zone and killing a kid... So you say "fuck it I'll go 75 and that asshole will only tailgate me?" oh FFFS

"posting rules we don't have the social will to enforce" or most people are too stupid to follow, which is why we have LAWS because people are too fucking stoopid to own common sense let alone practice it. Is it really your job to worry about some asshole passing you over a double yellow at 95mph in a school zone and killing a kid... So you say "fuck it I'll go 75 and that asshole will only tailgate me?" oh FFFS

Is it gauche to wear bibs without a jersey? On one hand it looks like you are wearing underwear in public, on the other it saves your jersey/ t-shirt from excess sweat accumulation. As an aside I noted that passing women bike riders (I'm that slow) said nice things as they went by, but maybe they thought I was sans brazierre .

Is it really your job to worry about some asshole passing you over a double yellow at 95mph in a school zone and killing a kid... So you say "**** it I'll go 75 and that **** will only tailgate me?" oh FFFS

Legally, no. Practically? I learned something to the effect that if I rolled through the 15 mph school zone at 25 people would usually stay behind me, while if I went 20 they would pass at 35+.

Which choice do you think made a greater contribution to school safety? Which was moral? Which was legal? (trick question - technically neither of them... should I have actually gone 15?)

When I said "rules" I meant "laws" - ones we aren't willing to have consistently enforced do society a severe dis-service as they introduce unpredictability in behavior.

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I prolly shouldn't mention this, but some of the kids in the club totally love that bike.

Sigh. that was a tough day yesterday, what with the death of my uncle on Wednesday, and then all of the 9/11 films, etc. Tears were never far away, so I came here for some light hearted humour and clicked on that fucking link, thank you kindly Commie. No, not the flamethrower one, the first one. Ferfucksake if that didn't permeate my dreams last night... tough shot to survive, that, and he just took the fucking gun out of his dad's shoulder holster! Sometimes it amazes me that we made it this far, humanity. How is it we continue to survive the inanity, never mind the outright insanity...?

Fondo is on now... just headed out in a minute for the trial run fondon't. Are you in Vancouver? You should join us. Just come to Musette at nine.

Here in suburban NJ we have drivers who routinely gripe about cyclists riding on rural backroads. My take on it as a cyclist (and driver) is this:

These roads are known to be popular with cyclists (as well as joggers and power walkers). Therefore it is not unexpected to encounter them.

Some of them are jerks are are riding several across for no apparent reason, but how is that any more jerk-like-behavior than the guy in the Buick driving at 20 in a 35mph zone?

also sometimes it makes sense to ride two abreast i.e, to reduce the overall length of a line of riders -- a car might have to wait longer to actually start passing, but while in the act of passing is alongside for half the time, halving the time the riders are exposed to risk; also sometimes riding two abreast makes you more visible than a solo rider or single file, thus reducing the chance of the inattentive driver barrelling into you.

At the end of the day, there are jerks in every group, but since there are far more car drivers than cyclists, guess where they tend to be concentrated? Also someone being rude on a bicycle is much less worse than someone being lethally dangerous in a 1,500 lb car!

Lastly, get a clue. Car drivers kill something like 40,000 people a day. If you want to bitch about cyclists, wait until we start carrying around RPGs and uzis -- the only conceivable way we could ever equal the danger posed by the driver on the cell phone who kills a family of four in one fell swoop.

That said, sometimes when driving I encounter other cyclists who are holding me up. I wait. Why? I lost way more time to being held up by OTHER DRIVERS, and frankly, I do not consider that it is worth risking someone's safety to pass a moment sooner.

Now, would that we could get all the jerks driving on cell phones to put them down, and pay the same amount of attention as the avid experienced cyclist, who is much more aware of his surroundings. Or better yet jail them for the all the incipient collisions they nearly cause. When did the law in this country stop treating negligence with a deadly weapon as a serious thing?

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!